The finance minister may be right in his apparent opinion that mortgage rates below three per cent are dangerous. Or he may not. What should have Canadians concerned, though, is how Jim Flaherty is trying to make financial institutions conform to his personal opinion.

He’s taken to calling up lenders, or having staff call up, and express concerns when a rate falls lower than he’d like. The businesses are then faced with the option of going along with the finance minister, or potentially getting on his bad side. BMO stuck to its 2.99-per-cent rate despite a Flaherty call. Manulife, though, changed its mind and decided not to offer a 2.89 rate after all, going back up to 3.09 per cent instead.

If Flaherty is concerned about Canadians not being to able to pay their mortgages once the rates go back up, he has ways to restrict lending conditions. Indeed, he’s already made wise reforms in areas such as amortization periods. The goal in mortgage regulation ought to be making sure vulnerable, at-risk borrowers don’t take on unsustainably large debts — not to try to make all mortgages less affordable, or at least all mortgages for people who aren’t skilled negotiators.

But of course, Flaherty isn’t regulating a price floor for mortgage rates. If he were, pundits, economists and politicians could argue against that, explain why it’s bad policy. That’s how governing is supposed to work. But no one can critique Flaherty’s policy, because he doesn’t have one. A policy implies a transparent rule that applies in a predictable fashion to every actor in the marketplace, not political pressure applied at whim. Is Flaherty calling all lenders who post rates lower than three per cent? Hard to say. And just what level might trigger a call? Is it 3.0, or 3.08, or higher? Again, hard to say, and it could change next week.

A quick search online finds posted rates as low as 2.77 available online now from lenders other than Manulife and BMO. The arbitrariness matters, because it might put lenders who listen to the finance minister at a disadvantage.

While we can sympathize with Flaherty’s desire to slow housing prices and rising household debt levels, his tactic this week was meddlesome and undermines the rule of law and the role of Parliament.